Hasta La Gadget!

Qualcomm didn’t show all its cards for this year when it unveiled the Snapdragon 600 and 800 at CES. The company is introducing a second-generation power charging technology, Quick Charge 2.0, that promises to cut mobile device charging times by as much as 75 percent versus regular power systems. Qualcomm has seen a tablet’s 7-hour top-up time reduced to under 3 hours. While 2.0 requires an optimized charger and is baked into the Snapdragon 800, it’s not exclusive to Qualcomm-based hardware — or small devices, for that matter. The updated Quick Charge is available as a stand-alone circuit, and could drive even laptops demanding up to 60W of energy. We don’t yet know the customer list, although Snapdragon 800 partners are included as a matter of course.

The telecom giant is saving one trick for itself, however. Snapdragon Voice Activation lets Snapdragon 800-based devices wake up through a specific voice command, whether or not those devices are online: think of it as a more advanced, less search-dependent parallel to Samsung’s wake-up trigger in S Voice. Both devices and software support must fall into place to make Voice Activation work, but truly hands-free mobile control could have a solid footing in the market before the year is over.

Filed under: Cellphones, Laptops, Tablets, Mobile

Comments

Source: Qualcomm

This week we’ve had the opportunity to have a look at the new HTC One with not only a collection of hands-on experiences, but with processor benchmarking as well. Using the standard Quadrant Benchmark test here we’re finding that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor is blowing up the charts, destroying the previous high-mark in the basic readout by more than double – those tiny towers on the left are what’s left of the original HTC One X, the ASUS Transformer Prim TF201 (with a Tegra 3 processor), and some lesser beings. Even compared with the Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core SoC running on the Google Nexus 4 only reaches nearly 5000 as a final score in Quadrant – the HTC One reaches 12,417!

Comparing the individual markers inside the total you’ll find a CPU score of 37,304, Memory at 10,922, and I/O at a staggering 10,566. Those are massive scores, on all accounts. The Nexus 4 comes in at CPU: 10,687, Mem: 7,612, and I/O: 4,340 if you’d like to know. With the HTC One’s combination of four Krait 300 CPU cores at 1.7GHz, an Adreno 320 GPU, and a performance boost well over the Snapdragon S4 Pro, this will very likely be the most impressive smartphone processor-wise you’ll have ever experienced.

We’ve also had a look at Sunspider working with the standard web browser on the device. Here we get a lovely 1195.2ms as a final result, this compared with the HTC One X+ (1215.4ms) and the Samsung Galaxy S III (1082.2ms) shows that web browsing is pretty much the same as it’s been over the past year. Then again – as above – this is not final software and anything could happen before the HTC One is released inside March, 2013. It should also be noted that the speed of the rendering on the HTC One (as well as the others here) were done at different times and under different conditions – so take it all with a bit of straw.

Also have a peek at our timeline below filled with hands-on experiences with the HTC One, complete with details from each of this device’s new features. With the HTC One, the company may well be entering a new age. One in which a single device really, truly is the hero – could it possibly be?

HTC One benchmarks: off the charts is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Have you ever wondered how much it actually costs to make a Blackberry Z10 device (or any smartphone in general)? CNN Money has provided the estimated pricing of each of the Blackberry Z10′s components, and how much it all adds up to. The teardown is provided by UBM TechInsights and they go through the cost of the display, processor, cameras, storage space, battery, communication chips, ram, and other components.

The 4.2-inch display for the Z10 costs around $26.50. The 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor costs about $23.50. The 8MP rear-facing camera and 2MP front-facing camera totals about $15. The 16GB internal storage costs around $9.00. The other components, including the battery, communication chips, and RAM total $21.00. Finally, the casing, as well as the other small electronics included in the Z10 total around $59.00. All of this adds up to $154.

The Blackberry Z10 is slightly more expensive to create compared to the iPhone 5, which costs about $139 to make. But in the Z10′s defense, the Z10 has a bigger, higher resolution screen, more RAM, and a bigger battery. Blackberry hasn’t released how much the unsubsidized price for the Blackberry Z10 yet, so we can’t really determine how much profit Blackberry makes off each phone.

The Blackberry Z10 won’t launch in the U.S. until March, and it has been confirmed, at least by Verizon Wireless, that the device will retail with a subsidized price of $199.99. Blackberry is hoping that with its new OS overhaul, it will be able to compete in a market that it once used to dominate. While many people are loving the new UI that comes with the Blackberry 10 OS, it will still be hard for Blackberry to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung, who is rumored to be announcing its new, highly-anticipated Samsung Galaxy S IV on March 15th.

[via CNN Money]

Blackberry Z10 costs about $154 to make is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Qualcomm has posted about its Quick Charge 1.0 power management initiative, and as its name indicates, this technology is designed to charge smartphones “up to 40%” faster. Qualcomm acquired this last year when it  bought Summit Microelectronics in June 2012. There is no question that battery capacity is not going to improve radically from a strcutural stand point, and while handset do get bigger batteries, they can only do so as long as the handset themselves get bigger. Fast charging is therefore the most likely path to real battery progress, and Qualcomm understands  that perfectly. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Mysterious Nokia Lumia Device Spotted In Lumia 920 Ad, Google Launches Nexus 4 Store Locator,

This week the folks at LG have revealed their fair share of smartphones, not the least of them being the LG Optimus G Pro, a device we’ve seen several peeks of before. This device works with a massive 5.5-inch display with Full HD resolution and a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. This device will be unleashed in South Korea first and has not yet been confirmed for Europe or the United States.

The device we’re seeing here is an extension of the excellence we’ve already seen both inside and outside of the United States with the LG Optimus G. That device worked with the first quad-core processor in a smartphone to hit the United States and also became the basis for the design of the multi-national ultra-popular Google Nexus 4. With sales of the LG-made Nexus 4 and Optimus G remaining strong several months after release, LG clearly hopes to extend their success through to Spring.

This LG Optimus G Pro comes with a beastly 3,140 mAh battery that’ll last you all night long and will be popping up with a 13 megapixel camera on its back. Inside you’ll also find 2GB of RAM, 32GB internal storage, and a microSD card slot for memory extension. This device is bringing on native 4G LTE connectivity for South Korean carriers as well.

BONUS: This device will be coming in Platinum White and Indego Black via NTT Docomo – how those shades differ from regular white and black, we do not know!

Have a peek at the timeline below for more information on the LG Optimus G series and be sure to check out the other bits LG has revealed this week. The LG Optimus L7 II, L5II, and L3 II have all been shown off to take on the 2013 mainstream market. We’ll be getting our hands on these devices without a doubt when we head to Mobile World Congress 2013 – join us later this month!

[via Unwired View]

LG Optimus G Pro revealed with beastly Full HD display is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.